Sony Ericsson challenges developers to come up with an irresistible program for its P800 phone. Analysts say it's a sign that software development for smartphones is in the doldrums. Read the news at News.com. Our Take: This is so unoriginal. There is only one application that can be re-created easily, to match a phone's requirements, that is completely a must-have for a phone/PDA that has internet access: A Watson replica. Even Apple had to copycat it for its new Sherlock, and even we asked for it. Watson just rocks, and it is extra useful when you are "on the go".

Sun Microsystems Inc has maintained that it will be developing its own extensions to the Linux operating system after confirming suggestions that its recently released Sun Linux 5.0 distribution is based almost entirely on Red Hat Inc's Linux 7.2, writes Matthew Aslett. You can also read an interview with Sun Microsystems Chief Executive Scott McNealy.

As Amiga Inc is about to re-enter the computer arena with new AmigaOS4 powered desktop systems as well as with 3rd party embedded products utilizing AmigaDE technology pre-installed, there are a growing number of people who wonder what an advanced classic AmigaOS currently offers. This was an important reason for me to write a simple to understand WinUAE tutorial, so this would hopefully help interested people with setting up a fun and easy to use emulated AmigaOS environment on widely available mainstream Windows computers. This article also includes many WinUAE screenshots and information on acquiring and using freely available software.

KDE 3.0.3 primarily provides stability enhancements over KDE 3.0.2, which shipped in eary July 2002, and also contains a security correction for SSL (Internet security) certificate handling. The full announcement can be found here.

So, you downloaded the free .NET SDK and compiler but you don't have a good and free IDE for your C# programming? The open source SharpDevelop 0.89 was just released and is available for download: "This release completes a major restructuring of the infrastructure and source code tree. Projects support backend bindings that are not targeting compilers, the object browser has much more functionality than before, folding was re-integrated and a new XML formatting strategy added (for details, see the Changes section). Our feature preview this time: a Windows Forms Designer. Take a look at the tech note and source code - if you have time to spare, help us make it a great open source implementation of a forms designer!"

Here is an overview of assembly language from a PowerPC perspective that contrasts examples for three architectures: ia32, ppc, and ppc64. This article assumes a basic understanding of computer design and of operating systems (system calls, exceptions, process stacks). It contains information that will be useful to PowerPC programmers unfamiliar with assembly as well as programmers who already know IA32 assembly and want to broaden their knowledge.

From NeoWin: "We have released the latest version of the DirectX D3D API to compliment the Beta 2 documentation. We recommend you review both the SDK documentation and this specification to assist development using Beta 2 DirectX D3D. The document includes: D3D-9 specs, D3D-9 shader specs, API changes explained, miscellaneous changes explained, sample code."

The article explains Linux debugging tools and techniques in various scenarios. It reviews debugging problems, including segmentation faults, memory overruns and leaks, and hangs. This article also appears in the August 2002 issue of the IBM developerWorks journal.

The exclusive news we broke last Monday, regarding gobeProductive going GPL in the very near future, have been going around the biggest sites on the web. We hear that the C++ source code of GP3 is of exceptional quality, and its creators are hoping into a broad participation of developers after its release. Because of its very clean codebase, GP3 is many times smaller and easier to handle, programming-wise, compared to, let's say, OpenOffice.org. We asked Bruce Hammond, now CEO of FreeRadicalSoftware, regarding the general portability of the software and the possibility of an OSX port. Bruce replied: "A port to OS-X is possible and very likely in the near future (8 month timeframe). We are starting a project to clean up the cross-platform engine and make moving GP to new platforms simpler."

So, ReactOS 0.20 was released very recently, the guys seem to make strides. NewOS had a new version too. Syllable is set for a new release, 0.4.1, in two weeks time, with lots of changes on the desktop part of the OS. Kurt Skauen, the AtheOS creator, is now presumed alive, he was just flying around! The MenuetOS web site has lots of new screenshots, they now have implemented skinning. SkyOS now has a sound API, based on OSS. FreeType 2.1.2 was released, and it is presumably much faster than before. A new IDE for Linux, named Anjuta, seems very interesting too, while mySQL, Lua and GnuCash had new versions too. On the downsides, we had Maarten Hekkelman quitting the Pepper business, while the guy who released ReBorn 1.0 just a week ago - a ReBirth clone, we were the first to report on it -, was instructed from Propellerhead Software to remove ReBorn from his site. Sad.

"Microsoft Corp. said yesterday that the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) flaw recently uncovered by an independent researcher is in multiple versions of the Windows operating system, not its Internet Explorer Web browser. Company officials added that the flaw isn't in Microsoft's CryptoAPI application program interface (CAPI) either, which would have left a number of applications and Windows services vulnerable, not just Internet Explorer." Read the report at ComputerWorld.

A few days back we hosted an interview with one of the two big names of the hobby Linux gaming houses. Today, it is time to interview the other big name, Bill Kendrick of NewBreedSoftware.

DistroWatch reports that the Mandrake beta announcements seem to come on Mondays only, but the beta 3 ISO images are already up for grabs: MandrakeLinux-9.0beta3-CD1.i586.iso (702MB), MandrakeLinux-9.0beta3-CD2.i586.iso (699MB) and MandrakeLinux-9.0beta3-CD3.i586.iso (412MB). Update: Announcement has arrived in our mailboxes and it is also live on the Mandrake site.

FreeBSD 4.6.2 is released. Download from here, release notes and changes done here.